Why The Toughest Of Marathons Has Very Little To Do With Running (and why that is brilliant news for all non-techies who want to make money online)…

Lee Stuart Evans, the chap that looks after all my financial products here at HQ, has returned in one piece from ‘The Toughest Footrace on Earth’ – the Marathon des Sables.

For those new to this particular event – it involves running what amounts to 5 marathons in 5 days across the Sahara desert carrying all your food and kit for the week on your back.

Lee has had much to say about his time in the desert, not least at the celebratory dinner we had for him on his return (where I strong armed him into showing all his photos and the videos he made whilst running the course) and much of it, for reasons of decency, I can’t go into detail about here – but straight away something became blindingly obvious.

Quite simply, it was that this whole event actually had very little to do with running – and I can reveal that is, in fact, brilliant news for all you non-techies out there who want to make money online.

Let me explain… the ability to run 20 odd miles quickly was, in this case, very much a secondary concern. In fact anyone who had approached this event purely on athletic ability alone might not have made it much past the first sand dune.

This was not about who could run the fastest, but about who was the better prepared, who managed their resources most effectively and those who carried on when it was much easier to stop and give up.

Lee had spent more than six months preparing for this – trying out different bits of his kit for weight and endurance, lived for a week from the freeze dried meals he would be taking with him and doing and re-doing everything he could think of so nothing would take him by surprise when it mattered.

His backpack going out was the optimum weight, right down to cutting some of the handle from his toothbrush to keep the weight down. When running the race his water management was planned to the millilitre and during the times when even that wasn’t enough – he still kept going, and earned himself the nickname ‘tenacious little b***ard’ from our Gallic cousins.

In the same way this event was about so much more than just ‘running’ … making money from the internet is about so much more than just knowing all the techie stuff. You need to know a little bit, of course, so you don’t get caught out if you’re not following somebody else’s plan – but if fear that you can’t make a website is holding you back from doing anything at all, then you’re perhaps looking at this from the wrong angle.

I’d go far as to say that if you had a half decent business head on your shoulders and no techie knowledge, you’d be more likely to do better in this industry than somebody with all the tech skills and no idea – in fact those ‘techie types’ that you’re so envious of … they would probably end up working for you.

I like to think I’ve done quite well (all things considered and after overheads and expenses of course) in this business and I can assure you it’s not through my extensive knowledge of all things ‘techie’ … I know where all the bits fit together so I (mostly) know what to ask for – but if I was to try have a go myself I’m sure everybody would be not only disappointed but slightly amused with the results.

So, if you think that you need to be some sort of techie genius to make a difference online, and are holding back from even trying, then I need to tell you that’s not the case all, and that good preparation, management of your resources and the ability to ‘stick with it’ will count for an awful lot more than you think.